Counterculture of the 1960s

The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon and political movement that developed in the Western world from the mid-1960s to the early 1970s. It overlaps with cultural liberalism and with the various social changes of the decade, and its effects reverberate to the present day. The movement gained momentum along with the civil rights movement in the United States, which led to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965; it intensified along with the Vietnam War, which drove some revolutionary sentiment. As the movement progressed, widespread social tensions also developed concerning other issues, and tended to flow along generational lines regarding respect for the individual, human sexuality, women's rights, traditional modes of authority, rights of people of color, end of racial segregation, experimentation with psychoactive drugs, and differing interpretations of the American Dream. Many key movements related to these issues were born or advanced within the counterculture of the 1960s. As the era unfolded, what emerged were new cultural forms and a dynamic subculture that celebrated experimentation, individuality, modern inca